1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a storage cabinet that can house a terminal device to be used in a video conference or the like, and a video conference system that includes the storage cabinet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the following conference system has been used in conferences in which a number of people participate. With this conference system, the participants sit in a circle, and a storage cabinet that houses a terminal device is placed at the center of the circle. Display devices such as liquid crystal displays are arranged in such positions so as to face the respective participants, and outputs from the terminal device are displayed on the display devices.
Also, in recent years, thin client systems have been introduced to many companies, firms, and the likes. In a thin client system, terminals have only minimum functions, and resources such as application software and files are managed by a server. Such a thin client system is operated through a terminal that can communicate with the server (see Sun Microsystems Homepage:—Thin Client http://jp.sun.com/products/desktop/sunray/, for example).
In such a thin client system, a single terminal performs user authentication, when a recording medium such as an authentication card having authentication information recorded thereon is inserted into the insertion slot of card reader. In this manner, the contents of the works the authenticated user can be viewed. With this thin client system used in a conventional conference system, conferences can be held while the work contents of the respective participants are viewed one by one through the single terminal.
The insertion slot of a card reader is normally provided on the front face of a thin client terminal. If a thin client terminal is set to a storage cabinet in a conventional manner, some of the participants need to go around the storage cabinet to insert a recording medium into the insertion slot, so that the authentication information can be read.